The left loses their minds over Hobby Lobby decision

posted at 12:41 pm on June 30, 2014 by Noah Rothman

I imagine the horrified shrieks that rose from the streets outside the Supreme Court on Monday as the decision in the Hobby Lobby case began to filter out into the crowd of liberal observers was reminiscent of those poor souls who watched helplessly as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire claimed the lives of 146 young, female garment workers.

In fact, the similarities are eerie. It seems that liberal commentators have convinced themselves that, just as was the case in 1911, the courts and the country have deemed women to be of lesser value than their male counterparts. The distinction between these two eras, of course, is that while that argument could be supported in 1911, it exists only in the heads of progressives in 2014.

NBC News journalist Pete Williams, an accomplished reporter who is not prone to indulge in speculation, went out of his way to insist repeatedly that the Court’s decision in this case was a narrow one. He noted that the decision extends only to the specific religious objections a handful of employers raised about providing abortifacients (as opposed to contraceptives). Williams added that Justice Anthony Kennedy allowed in his concurring opinion that the federal government can pay for and provide that coverage if employers would not.

The Federalist published a variety of other observations about this ruling which indicate that it was narrowly tailored to this specific case. The Court ruled that Hobby Lobby and other employers could not simply drop health coverage in order to avoid mandates. This decision does not apply to other government mandates like those requiring employers cover vaccinations. Finally, if the will of the public in the form of an electoral mandate creates a groundswell of support for a government-funded program which provides access to abortifacients, then that would be perfectly constitutional.

Williams’ MSNBC colleagues nodded along and, when asked for their contribution, proceeded to display none of this NBC reporter’s caution.

“I think we’ve seen a real goal post-moving here,” MSNBC.com’s Irin Carmon said. “We may say it is a narrow ruling because Taco Bell and Wal-Mart can’t opt out, but it is still an enormous expansion of corporate rights and of the refusal from the laws that are passed to create benefits for everybody.”

“The larger doctrinal implication here is potentially significant,” MSNBC host Ari Melber agreed. “For the first time, the Court is going and taking the First Amendment rights that we’ve seen long established for certain corporate entities and extending them to the religious idea.”

“Just because it was only restricted to women’s health access doesn’t mean that it doesn’t create a devastating precedent which says that women’s health care should be treated differently,” Carmon added. She added that the Republican Party is the biggest beneficiary of today’s ruling. “So, the context of this is an all-out assault on access to contraception and access to other reproductive health care services.”

HotAir’s Karl has accumulated some of the best examples of liberal “schadenfreude,” as he’s dubbed it, in which the left utterly and intentionally misconstrues the scope of this ruling. Incidentally, their reaction also helps to service what appears to be a widely shared victimhood fantasy.

We’ve seen indications that the left believes this decision is a prelude to theocracy:

The Supreme Court #HobbyLobby ruling proves once again that Scalia Law is a lot like Sharia Law.

It is interesting that there seems to be more outrage over this decision from the left than there was when the Court struck down dated portions of the Voting Rights Act. Though that decision had much farther reaching legal and political implications, this is the issue that has captured the passions of the left.

Comments

Fewer unplanned pregnancies is good for shrinking the size of the welfare state in particular.

libfreeordie on June 30, 2014 at 3:21 PM

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First off, abstaining from the activity is free.

Second off, since the invention of the pill the welfare state has not shrunk due to demographics from the pill. Lowering taxes is faster at that than anything else ever devised.

Third, what is wrong with poor people having children? This isn’t a caste system where your destiny is set at birth. Well, it wasn’t until social programs were invented to be run by government, that is…

ajacksonian on June 30, 2014 at 3:34 PM
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It would reflect a more enlightened and reality based view of the issue if one was to abstain from this as an argument.

verbaluce on June 30, 2014 at 3:41 PM

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That’s a weird comment. I mean, what ajacksonian said is true: abstaining from the activity is free.

And you would really think a true statement would be the very epitome of “reality-based.”

It’s almost like you have your own little language, where words have totally different meanings.

While we’re at it, why would true statements not be enlightening?

There Goes the Neighborhood on July 1, 2014 at 1:32 AM

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In reference to ajacksonian‘s “first off”, I’m gonna have to play devi- … I mean libfree’s and verbaluce‘s “advocate”.
Discipline isn’t “free”. You can’t really place a dollar value on it, but it does cost something. And in the U.S., we have a lot of “catching up” to do as regards personal discipline.
Today, we’re trying to “reverse” the effects of the unbridled hedonism culture of the 1970s. This is because my generation gave up all pretense of self discipline in general, and ‘the recognition of God’ in particular.
This is what we have to turn around. If we don’t succeed, then the U.S. goes the way of the Roman Empire. But it will cost something, because discipline has a price attached to it.
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Otherwise, ajacksonian‘s “second off” and “third” are dead on, as I see it.

Well, in response to Elizabeth Warren, abortifacients are not “basic care,” and my moral objections are not “vague” at all, but in fact are quite specific. Also, the “big corps” aren’t denying “basic care” to women, but simply declining to pay for the very specific morally objectionable medications which they believe are capable of killing unborn children. Women can still buy those with their own money. This isn’t an issue of access, but of culpability.